My Master Is a Booze-Crazed Old Taoist

On the fifteenth day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar in 1982, at midnight, a newborn’s cry rang out in Qingshigou Village, on the northern foothills of the Qinling Mountains. The villagers all said that a child born on the Ghost Festival would have a hard life. No one noticed the faint golden speck in the child’s left pupil. Shen Nian’an was different from other people from a young age: he could see things he wasn’t supposed to. On Ghost Festival when he was six, he encountered the first “unclean” thing of his life in his own courtyard, and nightmares plagued him from then on. When he was at his wits’ end, the village’s blind old woman brought a scruffy drunk to his door. The drunk was called Li Qingxu. He had lived on Zhongnan Mountain for decades and was known as “Madman Li.” He was drunk all day, never said anything sensible, carried a battered gourd flask at his waist, and couldn’t keep his eyes off pretty women. Yet with a single gesture, he subdued the thing that had tormented Shen Nian’an for half a year. When he was eight, Shen Nian’an went to Zhongnan Mountain and became the apprentice of that drunken madman. His master taught him how to draw talismans, regulate his breathing, and read qi; how to tell wandering souls from vengeful ghosts; and one important truth: every soul that lingers in this world has an unfulfilled attachment it cannot let go of. A soul ferrier’s job is not to drive them away or destroy them, but to guide them across, help them settle unfinished business, and send them on their way. From the depths of the Qinling Mountains to bustling cities, from discussions of the Dao at Longhu Mountain to the vast Miaojiang wilderness, Shen Nian’an travels far and wide. He ferries the dead who are bound by deep attachments, sees a world where human hearts can be darker than ghosts, and meets people willing to stand by his side. Only on the day his master passes into the Dao does he finally understand: the soul his master wagered all his cultivation to ferry in this life was Shen Nian’an himself.